Dave G.

Thanks guys on my wife . We all have an expiration date that is not written on our birth certificates. Hers came up Dec 20, 2020, 1:10 am.

That compressor looks to be pretty close to mine lol !

Depending on the paint viscosity, the day etc. I put down the last two coats pretty wet. I don't so much change my shooting distance as open up a bit more and slow the passes down. I hand hold the body on a mount of one sort or another and always shoot down onto it, not to the side. So the roof faces up when I shoot, the left side faces up when I shoot and the right side faces up when I shoot and each end faced up when I shoot. Doesn't have to be perfectly up but the brush should be shooting down on it in a general way rather than shooting a horizontal surface. Another thing is the compressor. The Paasche H flows that true 35 psi but not all compressors keep up to that. Many airbrushes today restrict air to 20 some odd psi, you can set the compressor to 50 psi but the airbrush itself won't flow it but the H will. You need to watch your working pressure, that's what the gauge reads with air flowing through the brush. That said I shoot enamel 32-33 psi working pressure anyway personally,least at the thinning ratio we are talking about. If there is a good pattern coming out it will go down fine. If it needs more I crank it up some more but my compressor will flow 4.5 cfm at 45 psi or 3.5 at 90. Most hobby compressors won't flow that at any pressure setting. Point being I don't worry about it. I don't pamper it, I just blast it on lol. There is a rhythm to the passes, once in the groove just keep going. Black can be tricky, pick a nice day. And practice, get a few bottles, you don't want to run out mid spray. When Model Master stopped producing classic black I was bummed, had it perfected. I havn't shot the regular enamel in decades. But I have Tamiya X-1 going down pretty glassy. Just a light buff is all. Did 1/16 model A fenders in that last fall and came out awesome. Then the wife died and I've only worked on the kit half heartedly since. Just getting back to functioning a little more normal now but 47 years with someone you love who up and croaks one night is a real shall we say stirring upset.

Sometimes I do one of two things in warmer weather. I mix 30-40 % hardware paint thinner into the lacquer thinner before thinning, then thin with that. This acts as flow aid and retarder. Paint thinner by itself flows like crazy but I notice you can get craters or a fisheye type effect using it alone. Or I nix the LacquerThinner and go 50/50 odorless mineral spirits and paint thinner then thin as usual. So those are some options to mess with. That video was from Andy X, I just linked it. I thin more like 55/45 paint to thinner which is more what he had by the time he flushed that bottle, fwiw. I used to use Pete's method but hit on these and never went back. But that finish you have there is going to buff up fine. You may not have pure lacquer thinner !! Some states have put so much restriction on LT it ships to those states mostly as acetone. Not saying thats the case but get a whiff of acetone when you can, then your thinner, should be a different smell. On another note a guy or two over in the FSM forums made paint dryers using a tub like you have there. Mounting a low watt light bulb in the top or in the back on one end, wired on a dimmer ( I want to say 25watt bulb) and a computer cooling fan in one end, a bunch of holes in the other end with a furnace filter mounted there.. I believe one guy sets his dimmer till inside temp is around 110F. He leaves enamel in for 3 days to full cure. I can get full cure in about 8 hours in a dehydrator. I just use the Emeril 350 we have in the kitchen lol, set to 108 usually. But I'm going to conduct some experiments with hotter temps, I think I can get to 115f. I've done 110. I usually do 3 hours to kick start it. Then air dry a few days, those few hours I can handle the painted surface ok. Besides we may need to change it to oven mode and cook pizza. Just put the parts on a small tin or something and put the whole tin in the oven. Anyway, if you get to like enamels ( this is just your first shot at it, I been shooting enamel 60 years, a form of dryer helps pick up the pace, especially if you do two tone work. Some guys by used food dryer and hack the racks up. One guy in FSM scored one of those cabinet style paint dryers in a yard sale or flea market someplace. Pretty sure it was 50/50 LT to paint thinner and thinned Model Master yellow enamel 55/45 paint to thinner and can see myself in the differential of the 1911 Mercer. That day was pretty dry as I recall, maybe 68F.

Not much time right now, I have a couple thoughts. But that finish should polish right up after a couple applications with something like Formula 1 Scratch Out. I was going to suggest getting two bottles lol !! I'll be back,others might chime in meanwhile.

I use a couple of things. One and I even shoot bodies with this, is an empty bottle ( aclipse chewing gum bottle, tums bottle, I've used inverted party cups hand held etc),maybe put a little dirt or some stones in the bottom of the bottle for ballast, course that won't work for the cup . I form a circle of blue tape sticky side out and tape that to the top, then stick the part to that. The second is wooden barbecue skewers with parts attached by various means to include my circle of tape method to the side of the end of the stick ( dirt cheap at the grocery store, but there is a bag of them in two sizes in my kitchen anyway.).. I use the skewers as paint mixing sticks too.

SOHC got banned at Nascar back in the day. So they beat half or more of the competition anyway with the pushrod engines. Nascar also banned the Ford 427 pushrod high rise iteration, so they did it with medium rise. Heck the 406 Ford was mopping up before that. It was Ford or Chrysler hemis back and forth race after race. The over head cam would have totally mopped up thus the banning. Chevy back then mostly blew up at nascar. Ran great till they popped. But eventually the CID restriction came in and leveled all the playing field.

I'd mix my own from craft paints, I use craft paints the most for engines personally. Not saying you should and you did put in your request for hobby paint. But that Chevy grey/blue you almost can't miss on unless you want "the" absolute original brand new factory paint color. Those engines got rebuilt a lot and ended up with all sorts of blues on them. Seems to me my own 55 had a mid blue on it. Got yanked to put a 327 in it anyway and that was a long time ago so my impression could be whacked..

I don't have the kit in front of me but I'd think there would be plenty of room for a quad or dual quad setup on a standard riser manifold.

I wondered but nice job anyway, cause we all know decals don't always lay down perfectly either. I'm not even a 49 Merc fan and like it. I did build one many moons ago but as I recall used the flathead.

Well as I said, rear sump oil pans were used. So was external oiling on certain iterations ( couple of hoses out the side to an oil tank). So if you turn the pan around don't let someone tell you it's wrong. The FE should be a nice fit.

Ouch, I had drive the demons out of my house when I read this lol !! Seriously looks great in there. But I really like the idea of the FE, only because I built so many in 1/1 and raced with a couple of them back in my day in the drag race apple cart. As long as it's not the typical Chevy small block that is so common it's boring even though a great engine ( I've built my share of those too in my time). The red stripes on the engine kill me,that's touch I wouldn't even attempt. Nice clean build !

,Hah, I have a 49 Ford in the same situation, though not chopped and all.But it just got out of hand non the less lol !

I imagine the biggest issue would be the front sump oil pan and Mercs cross member,steering links etc.. But if it helps plenty of FE engine builders in the day did a rear sump conversion just fwiw. Fe engines in heavy trucks too had a long pickup from the front oil pump more rearward reaching. I know I worked on enough of them. A big Part of keeping the performance FE alive was keeping it oiled. On my own Mustang with 390 FE I opted to go down with the front sump which added 3 quarts of oil. Then drop some holly carb jets in the rocker arm feeder holes to restrict oil flow up top ( 1970's trickery to keep the valve covers from robbing oil to cam and crank in a nose high launch at the track at 6200 rpm lol). 5800-6000 is safer but they still needed oil. These weren't 8000 rpm engines, bore to stroke ratio was wrong for that but they had tons of grunt for the launch for it's day.

Boss 427 is modern techno talk for a stroker Boss 351 done up as a 427. The 427 FE is one of the Ford factory legends but not a so called cammer, it's a push rod engine. Came in a few iterations and configurations.

By the way, in that time it still won't be fully cured but safe to handle etc.

A few days to a week for safe handling and building, unless you have a dehydrator or paint drying box.

Really the candy coat is a form of clear, just tinted to give the translucent candy color. .

If you want to do anything just take some Formula 1 Scratch out and polish what you have there. Or just leave it alone. I've never been disappointed with Scratch out though, as in it never goes too far.

I'm only going to say this one more time ? the green label with black chair Rustoleum lacquer goes on smooth and polishes easy. Hot acrylic lacquer is never easy imo. Looks like you got more polishing to do there unless you're happy stopping there. Honestly I'd just rather shoot it down with Testors bottled enamels thinned with LT, 3 coats you're done with possibly no polishing and no clear coat. Shoot and run. Decanted Rustoleum 2X enamel will do the same thing. And enamel doesn't blush in less than ideal humidity. Just sayin, look at this link or video whichever shows up:

Exactly, welcome to the O F club of modelers lol ! I really enjoy the classics era cars. Especially 1/24 and 1/16. 1957 down to 1911 or so but especially 30's. Modern does 0 for me. Same for other categories of models too.

So they're building models of things they see probably like what's in their video games. Makes sense because I honestly never saw any sense in gundam, citadel etc models. But I'm 71yo so the transistor radio was a big deal when I was yoooung, there were no electronic devises. Telephones had operators and a two party line was an upgrade. When single came along Single was amazing. I remember in school some kids took on a project in about the 5th grade maybe. It ended up being two girls and myself at one of the girls homes, once another boy showed up and we built a model of a nuclear power plant. The two girls moms kind of directed the activity. But that's about as abstract or to me imaginative a thing I ever got involved in regarding models, cause honestly nuclear power plants weren't even on my radar but the girls were starting to get bumps on their chests and stuff.. But the offer went out for anyone interested in model, to which I was. At that the girls had more enthusiasm than I ever did over it and I was a modeler but of cars, trucks, ships, airplanes.

Let us know how you make out.

I shoot it at 23-25 psi, 25 static, 23 flowing. Or there abouts. Have you ever thinned some of this then returned the unused remainder to the bottle ? A little leaven ruins the whole loaf theory. Water filter in your airline ? As I said except a hickup here or there mine goes on smooth, when I want it thinner I've settled on LT then it lays down even more satin smooth. Best I got for ya except to maybe contact Badger.

Keep us updated on that one, interesting !